Plans - Thoughts?

[richo106]

Hi

 

This is our first design of our bungalow extension

 

I am welcome to any comments/thoughts on these design/plans 

 

Thanks in advance

[Ferdinand]

I'll say it.

 

If you are doing that much to a bungalow, it might be better off doing at a demolish / replace.`

[richo106]

48 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

I'll say it.

 

If you are doing that much to a bungalow, it might be better off doing at a demolish / replace.`

 

Yes that is a possibility, as soon as we get plans finalised/passed going to see the best way to achieve it

 

Many Thanks

[Dudda]

31 minutes ago, richo106 said:

Yes that is a possibility, as soon as we get plans finalised/passed going to see the best way to achieve it

 

Many Thanks

Why wait that long? Get a Quantity Surveyor to do a quick high level calculation now as it will be money well spent. Pennies in the grand scheme of things. The rule we have is if the cost of an extension and refurbishment is 80% of the cost of a new build then you're better off doing a new build as you reduce unknowns and end up with a better building (no cold bridges, easier to achieve better airtightness, optimum layout, etc).

 

Personally I'd get this an order of magnitude cost and see which is the way to go; new build or extension and major refurb. If it's new build you can start clean from scratch with your own new house design. You don't have to stick to whatever elements you're trying to retain in the existing and will have much more freedom. Then this is the building you go and get planning permission for. No way would I get planning permission if I didn't know it would be a new build or extension and refurb or existing.

 

I don't know about the UK but in Ireland you have to say how much is demolished on a planning application and what's retained. Lets say you went and got permission for the above layout and found out it was cheaper to get a rebuild you technically can't as you wouldn't have permission to demolish it all. The likelihood of someone noticing and objecting are probably small but you wouldn't have permission and compliance could also be an issue.

 

 

As for the plan I don't like the way a visitor to the house has to go through a utility to use the bathroom. 

[Mr Punter]

That is a lot of full height glazing in the kitchen.  Looks nice on plan but can cause overheating, echo (especially if you have hard floors) and glare.  The room may not feel comfortable or easy to live with.

 

Lose the chimneys.  They are poor for thermal bridging and airtightness and often problematic for water ingress.  Also if you are burning stuff it can really affect indoor and outdoor air quality.

[Dudda]

14 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

That is a lot of full height glazing in the kitchen.  Looks nice on plan but can cause overheating, echo (especially if you have hard floors) and glare.  The room may not feel comfortable or easy to live with.

 

Lose the chimneys.  They are poor for thermal bridging and airtightness and often problematic for water ingress.  Also if you are burning stuff it can really affect indoor and outdoor air quality.

Do we know which way north is? Possibly not but the kitchen and glazing could be facing north. 

[richo106]

Appreciate all the comments so far, very useful!

 

I have attached a photo to show north

[Iceverge]

I'm going to take a punt and say the dark grey walls are existing and the light grey are new. 

 

Clean sheet design is best opinion. You're going to have to move out either way. You'll have a cheaper, better house. 

 

What is the setting of the current building? Are there close neighbours? Is there any nice scenic views? Is there privacy issues from the Street? I notice at the back of the garage there is a hair salon. I'm not sure of officialdoms views on this  as it sounds like a commercial venture but maybe it's best labeling it "study" or likewise. 

 

Do you intend staying here forever or move in a few years? 

 

[richo106]

9 hours ago, Iceverge said:

I'm going to take a punt and say the dark grey walls are existing and the light grey are new. 

 

Clean sheet design is best opinion. You're going to have to move out either way. You'll have a cheaper, better house. 

 

What is the setting of the current building? Are there close neighbours? Is there any nice scenic views? Is there privacy issues from the Street? I notice at the back of the garage there is a hair salon. I'm not sure of officialdoms views on this  as it sounds like a commercial venture but maybe it's best labeling it "study" or likewise. 

 

Do you intend staying here forever or move in a few years? 

 

Yes correct on the dark grey/light grey walls

 

Neighbour on garage side but trees on left. Nice views out the front, 12 meters back from road..small village road. Out the back decent sized garage, view is side of one house and a church…no privacy issues 

 

Planning to be forever home

 

Cheers

[Iceverge]

I like the aesthetic of the house and it sounds like you've found a lovely plot. 

 

The first thing I'd get sorted is the layout.  

 

I'd make a dedicated home office. Times suggest they're the future, maybe even two if that's how the household operates. Many of us are stuck having to do video calls from the kitchen table or a bedroom, you don't need to be. 

 

It's a large house so there's not much excuse for not having an wet-room en-suite on the ground floor. Nobody wants to go to a care home for the sake of a small bit of shuffling at design stage. It means they can live in their own house when they get old.  Much less stress doing it now rather than dealing with adapting the house along with having an illness/frailty.

 

I'd make the utility/ laundry larger. You'll never regret it. 

 

Jack and Jill bathrooms are a pain to live with in my experience as well as causing noise issues in the "wee" small hours! 

 

I would shuffle the rooms downstairs. All the beautiful daylight will be wasted in the two reception rooms that you will spend little of the day. 

 

Once you have that nailed. I'd move onto sorting the energy modelling of your house. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ferdinand]

I won't comment on the detailed layout etc, as others have and if you are going to replace it then you will need to return to the start to avoid being bound so much by the floorplan of the existing bungalow ?.

 

Except to note that you need to make sure that the sun penetrates into all rooms at all times of the day. That kitchen living swathe risks being dark at times. Why do all the windows of your main living space face north with all that space at the sides? My house was laid out by the previous owners, and I have this problem in my kitchen / living area, which can be a little miserable especially in the mornings and at tea time. If you are starting from scratch I think you can expect to be rather more ambitious imo.

 

I like the concept, but I feel that the eye is drawn to the landing window rather than the front door - and I think the garage is getting too much attention in the facade.

 

What to play with?

 

Don't align the horizontal break line on the facade with the garage. Either match it to the floor break in the hall / landing, or break it with the windows, or otherwise break the visual join between the house and garage.

 

Or perhaps make the downstairs windows and particularly the front door more prominent.

 

IMO it needs to read more like a "house with garage attached". The garage needs to be subservient to the main house, not penetrating it visually.

 

Ferdinand

 

[saveasteading]

47 minutes ago, Iceverge said:

 

I'd make a dedicated home office. Times suggest they're the future,

In Scotland it is compulsory to show an area that can be used as a work space, even including sufficient socket positions.

This does not have to be a discrete room but can be in a hallway if big enough.

Perhaps those who know can say how long this has applied.

[Ferdinand]

There's also work to be done on circulation routes.

 

If the hair salon is going to be what you say, then you want a route in for customers that does not wend its way through your family living space.

 

It needs to be an annexe.

 

Suggest drawing up some use-cases as part of your spec, that you can use as a yardstick of your possible future lives to stretch your thnking, and validate your design decisions. 

 

eg These are annexe focussed. You need to consider both  the peeps in the annexe and in the house. Two places - not "here" and "out the back". Ladies being pampered will not take ""out the back". The "salon"" needs to be a lovely space, not a back room with a hair-dressing chair. Better to perhaps at least swap with the storage.

 

Grandma or both parents move in to be cared for, or semi supported.

Family member needs supported living.

Soundproof place for rock band to be developed / trombone to be practised. 

Child needs to boomerang after university.

Both of us need to work from home, one with visiting customers.

Lodger or holiday rental annexe or place for artist. 

Want somewhere semi-attached (detached) for elder teenager.

Where would we make moonshine?

 

The best place to get  the concepts is to learn about "pattern language".  

https://www.patternlanguage.com/aims/aims.html

 

And now I am going to shut  up.

 

F

 

[pdf27]

1. Huge wall of north-facing glass. Good for sunlight, but going to cost £££ to both build and heat. If they're bi-folds then I suspect you'll need a monster of a steel lintel to support the wall above, if not you may find you need pillars to break up the wall-of-glass effect.
2. Chimneys are at or below ridge height. If you're actually using them that may cause issues with smoke, if not you're better off without them. The drawing is a little hard to read (blurry), but am I correct to think that the ground floor room at the front right (East side) has a "feature fireplace" but no chimney, while the one at the front left has a chimney but no fireplace?
3. My understanding is that if you keep anything above the foundations 20% VAT applies to the whole build. If not it's zero-rated. Given how little is left by this stage assuming that the dark grey areas are the retained walls I'm almost certain that the tax saving will be greater than the value of the walls and foundation retained. Note also that you may have issues with tying the new foundations to the existing ones - not insoluble, but adds cost and headaches.
4. For a major refurbishment of a bungalow like that you may find some difficulty in getting people to quote. We got to the stage of a design a few years ago before the 20% VAT thing and people only being willing to quote for a demolish/rebuild due to the risks of finding something nasty killed off the project. A house over the road tried to do this, and then when they pulled up the floor found out the foundations were grossly inadequate and had to stop work and get permission for a demolish/rebuild.
5. Loads of glass, chimneys, existing walls, no PV, etc. makes me wonder if you may have difficulty getting this through SAP.  Not something I've really worried about in our case (we're going for the opposite end of the spectrum), but if I've understood correctly even major refurbishments have to meet a reasonable standard for the whole house.
6. Why is the hair salon pointing at your back garden and the storage pointing at the road with a garage door when you can't fit a car in it? Unless there's a very good reason I'd flip it around and put the utility room in there as well, with an inside door off the kitchen. 

[richo106]

Thank you all for the comments, definitely gave us something to think about and where we go next. 
 

Bedroom 5 is going to be office, regarding the jack and jill Bedroom 2 will be our dressing room/walk in wardrobe so will only be used by us and not as a bedroom.

 

Even though we have no neighbours to the left our boundary is about 5/6m with quite tall trees and bushes.

 

yes the door will be moved in the kitchen so it goes into the ‘salon’. It won’t be a salon on the plans, it’s more of room that my wife does hair sometimes now and then.

 

Comments around the chimneys have put slight doubt in my mind now, but we are wanting some kind of fire/log burner in the main kitchen area maybe.

 

we like the idea of the large doors at the back, more than likely it will be a sliding door, the large window the other side of chimney breast can be altered 

[patp]

Make sure that the living space faces South. Having lived in two houses where it didn't and now one where it does face South I would never live in another house that faced in any other directions. The current house was re jigged to take make lounge face West instead of East. The original, West facing kitchen is now where the lounge was.

 

New build was put on the plot, by the architect, facing North and East! The minute we saw it we said "spin it". He looked a bit taken aback because they all design for the best "street view". Yes we will drive up to the rear of the new house but that is a small price to pay for all the light that comes into the living rooms rather than the hall! (Ours is a bungalow).

[Iceverge]

5 hours ago, patp said:

Make sure that the living space faces South. Having lived in two houses where it didn't and now one where it does face South I would never live in another house that faced in any other directions. The current house was re jigged to take make lounge face West instead of East. The original, West facing kitchen is now where the lounge was.

 

New build was put on the plot, by the architect, facing North and East! The minute we saw it we said "spin it". He looked a bit taken aback because they all design for the best "street view". Yes we will drive up to the rear of the new house but that is a small price to pay for all the light that comes into the living rooms rather than the hall! (Ours is a bungalow).

 

Golden Rule #1. 

[Ferdinand]

10 hours ago, patp said:

Make sure that the living space faces South. Having lived in two houses where it didn't and now one where it does face South I would never live in another house that faced in any other directions. The current house was re jigged to take make lounge face West instead of East. The original, West facing kitchen is now where the lounge was.

 

New build was put on the plot, by the architect, facing North and East! The minute we saw it we said "spin it". He looked a bit taken aback because they all design for the best "street view". 

 

IME personal experience most of them actually don't, and we can disagree on that.

 

But the point is valid.

[AliG]

I would echo many of the points already made.

 

Try to face the room you use the most south and west.

 

I would not put a WC through a utility/cloakroom. Nor would I combine those rooms. You'd be forever tripping over shoes and things trying to get to the WC. Would you want visitors going through your utility room when they come to visit.

 

It seems like the storage area has been designed so it can be changed back into a garage, if you don't ever plan to do this, just make it part of the house. the you can put utility and plant room there.

 

I think three sitting areas downstairs is too much. A room with an en suite that can be a study now and bedroom if needed would be better.

 

I would probably have a smaller main bathroom and a second en suite in this size of house. Not sure what your family situation is, but teenagers or visitors would probably prefer their own bathroom.

 

Don't bother with a fire/log burner in the kitchen. Will never be used in a well insulated house and is an expensive hassle.

 

The current design is fine, but seems maybe a bit conventional. I guess it depends on whether you have planning constraints or a look you want to achieve, but I would think an architect could do something a bit more contemporary. The large areas of glass on the upstairs hall and the kitchen do not match well aesthetically with the other windows and I think the reason is that they are a more modern feature on a house that doesn't have a modern design.

[richo106]

Once again thanks again for all the comments, each one we are reading and considering.

 

we are struggling with room position regarding sun etc as we don’t want our kitchen dining area facing out to the front of the property

 

The reason why the architect designed it like this as we wanted a traditional looking brick house with a bit of glass. We wanted to keep it in theme with the village it’s in and also have a timeless design that wouldn’t date etc

 

we keep changing our minds on chimneys, we would like some kind of feature within our kitchen area. The negatives of cost to build, damp issues etc are on my mind. Also we the think the chimney breaks up the back of the house. any other ideas we could have instead of these?

 

Thanks again 

[Adsibob]

On 10/09/2021 at 18:41, Iceverge said:

It's a large house so there's not much excuse for not having an wet-room en-suite on the ground floor. Nobody wants to go to a care home for the sake of a small bit of shuffling at design stage. It means they can live in their own house when they get old.  Much less stress doing it now rather than dealing with adapting the house along with having an illness/frailty.

I always find this kind of assumption very defeatist, pessimistic and generally avoidable. Unless you are already severely challenged in mobility terms, there is no reason why one cannot take care of one's physical health so that one doesn't grow frail. Old yes, but not necessarily frail. There are things one can do to stay mobile. Walking up and down stairs is one of the most important. Use it or lose it. A simple series of exercises to keep the leg joints working doesn't take longer than 10 minutes a day.

If you have a joint issue, invest money on a good physiotherapist who can rehab you and then get you onto a good gym programme that will get you fit. I have several back and joint issues and a nervous system issue that requires some pretty strong anti convulsive medication. If i don't do my exercises I spasm in pain, but if I do i get by okay and have no reason to believe I won't be able to climb up and down stairs until the day I die.

 

See this for info, particularly the bit about exercise: https://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/clinical-policy/older-people/frailty/preventing-frailty/

Edited September 15, 2021 by Adsibob

[dpmiller]

Speaking as someone who had a serious leg break in an accident  20 years ago, I was darned-lucky to live in a bungalow and have made very sure that our design enabled downstair living.

 

Very happy to be " defeatist, pessimistic and generally avoidable "

[Marvin]

23 minutes ago, dpmiller said:

 

Very happy to be " defeatist, pessimistic and generally avoidable "

+1

I have car insurance, house insurance and life insurance.

 

At £5k a month care costs preparing for a possible future is a no-brainer. I have worked for to many clients who have had to leave their home because they can't climb steps or get to the bathroom.

Also as so many people seem to eventually face these challanges I think having a suitable property to meet long term needs is a good selling point.

 

 

 

[Adsibob]

1 hour ago, Marvin said:

+1

I have car insurance, house insurance and life insurance.

 

At £5k a month care costs preparing for a possible future is a no-brainer. I have worked for to many clients who have had to leave their home because they can't climb steps or get to the bathroom.

Also as so many people seem to eventually face these challanges I think having a suitable property to meet long term needs is a good selling point.

 

 

 

Fair enough. It does make your house more appealing to a wider market, I agree. 

[Iceverge]

@Adsibob

 

What about wheelchair visitors?